Patterns of Work and Schooling in Young Adulthood

If the years of late adolescence and early adulthood are depicted as rocky, disorderly, and experimental, then how should the life course stage that immediately follows be characterized? Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972, we focus on work and school activities in the latter half of the young adult years (ages roughly 25–31) to empirically address whether the diversity of work and schooling patterns diminishes. Finding a lack of orderliness in work and schooling trajectories, and that holding two or more activities simultaneously is quite common, we question how this stage of the life course should be conceptualized. Moving away from the traditional sequential roles approach, we use multinomial logistic regression to differentiate among activity sequences commonly held by young men and women at these ages, and address how family of origin background factors and prior life experiences influence life course experiences in the later 20s and early 30s.

     

Community and contraceptive choice in rural Thailand: A case study of Nang Rong

This paper blends quantitative with qualitative data in an investigation of community and contraceptive choice in Nang Rong, Thailand. Specifically, it develops an explanation of 1) method dominance within villages, coupled with 2) marked differences between villages in the popularity of particular methods. The quantitative analysis demonstrates the importance of village location and placement of family planning services for patterns of contraceptive choice. The qualitative data provide a complementary perspective, emphasizing the importance of social as well as physical space and giving particular attention to the structure of conversational networks.     

Household structure and the tempo of family formation in comparative perspective

Summary Previous research on the relationship between extended family residence and fertility has produced conflicting findings. In the present paper, we avoid a major shortcoming of past work by focusing on residence and fertility at a given stage of the life-cycle, i.e. the stage following first marriage. Results show that residence with husband's parents reduces age at marriage. Residence with wife's parents shows no such consistent effect. No evidence was found to support the claim that extended family residence consistently affects the length of the interval between marriage and the first birth. These findings are consistent across four cultural/ethnic groups.     

The initiation of contraception

Using data from the 1970 National Fertility Study, the trend in the initiation of contraception prior to the first pregnancy is examined. This trend is of interest because of its relationship to the tempo of familybuilding. Using data from a recent marriage cohort, it is shown that use before the first pregnancy is related to age at marriage, age at termination of first pregnancy and the probability of having a premarital conception. For women first married during the decade of the 1960’s, there was a substantial increase in the proportion using contraception before the first pregnancy. This trend is found among both white Catholics and white non-Catholics, but not among blacks. An examination of the specific method used by women using contraception before the first pregnancy reveals a shift from reliance on the traditional methods of diaphragm, condom and douche by the earlier birth cohorts to the use of the pill by the more recent cohorts. An appendix examines the reliability of various measures of the interval of first use of contraception.     

The family building life course and contraceptive use: Nang Rong, Thailand

This paper incorporates the insights of the life course perspective in an examination of the determinants of contraceptive use. It views decision-making about contraceptive methods in the context of personal history and the broader social setting. Three stages in the reproductive life course of married women are considered. In the early years, timing decisions dominate. Contraception is used to delay the first birth and control the tempo of fertility. Mid-career, the major concern is whether to have a sterilizing operation. Towards the end of the fecund period, couples must decide when to stop using contraception, given that they have not already opted for sterilization. We examine choice among nonpermanent methods, as well as sterilization, in the context of a theoretical model that explicitly recognizes the permanence of the sterilization decision. Our statistical procedures control for unobserved community influences. The data are from Nang Rong district, Thailand, a relatively poor area near the Cambodian border under going substantial socioeconomic change during the 1980s. Our results clearly show variation in method choice over the reproductive life course, and variation in the effects of specific determinants including age of husband and wife, living arrangements, and village location. They also demonstrate gains in the understanding of any particular stage in the life course that accrue from an integrated examination of all of them.     

Population and Upland Crop Production in Nang Rong,Thailand

This paper estimates village-level models of the effects of population variables on the area devoted to upland crop production in Nang Rong district, Thailand. The expansion of upland crops is part of the growth of market agriculture in Nang Rong, and a correlate of deforestation in this setting, The results show that population density (measured as density of village settlement) negatively affects area in upland crops while population growth has a positive effect. Changes in land use associated with population change appear to radiate outward from nuclear village centers. As cash economies are established in rural settings, household formation requires a source of income as well as a subsistence stake. Growth in the population of households is a stronger predictor of the area in upland crops than growth in the number of persons.     

Family Configurations and Child-Care Patterns: Familes with Two or More Preschool-Age Children

Objectives . This article examines the extent to which mothers must find child-care arrangements for more than one preschool child and, when they do, the strategies they adopt to juggle their work and family roles. Methods . We use national data from numerous studies with information on fertility and child care among employed mothers with children. Results . We find that it is a common life-course experience for mothers to need child care for two or more preschool-age children. Employed mothers' preferred strategy for child care for their multiple preschool-age children is to place all preschoolers in the same type of arrangement, choosing parental care more often and center care less often than employed mothers with one preschooler. Conclusions . Previous child-care research has ignored the complexities parents face when they must make child-care decisions about all their preschool-age children simultaneously. Child-care decisions need to be studied within the family and household context.